Shattuck also shows how the argument of American exceptionalism was used to push back against women playing baseball. Add those kinds of stories to a focus on the unscrupulous male owners such as Sylvester Wilson, who exploited their female players by promising them paychecks and not paying them, and what family would want their daughters to play baseball? At the same time, reporters also portrayed female players in a negative light, hoping to discourage women of virtue and means from playing the game. The press was quick to remind women who played baseball that they were sacrificing their future for a game.

Physical exertion was also believed to be detrimental to women’s health. Beauty and athleticism did not go together. What then became expected was a “man’s” game that women got to play but were never taken seriously.Īttitudes toward women and physical exertion were also used to reinforce the gendered view of baseball. Labeling them as an exception or an oddity allowed people to believe that women playing was not normal. But one of the biggest reasons for the exclusion of women was the deliberate downplaying of female ball players and teams. Using her extensive research, Shattuck points out that men and women were both involved in creating the reality. Instead she sets out to prove there was a deliberate effort put in to creating that outcome. The real question is why? How did that happen? And who let it happen? And most importantly, she wants to know, can it be undone? Shattuck argues it is an erroneous belief that baseball has always been a man’s game. Shattuck begins from the premise that baseball did not start as a gendered game yet, by the end of the 19 th century, it had become a man’s game.

Bloomer Girls by Debra A. Shattuck